All Part of the Plan
by Snap
Summary: Harley laughed. She looked forward to putting on a good show. "It wasn't so much a meeting, per se, as it was a freight train hitting a deer." Harley/Joker--in a morbidly goofy kind of way
1. 9:42 pm

**_I'm trying to emulate the goofy/vicious love-hate relationship the Joker and Harley Quinn had in Batman: The Animated Series and yet I want to make it relevant to the Batman Begins and TDK gloomy, decaying Gotham world._**

**_So please, by all means, bust my chops and heckle me if I suck at this._**

**_Harley, Joker, Gordon, and Batman and any other recognizable characters are property of DC. Harley is not really an OC, but, damnit, she might as well be._**

* * *

Chapter 1: 9:42 PM--Let's Start at the Beginning

It was only the two of them. Him. And her. He felt so far away from the rest of humanity at that moment. He might as well have been stuck in the Sahara Desert. He shifted his weight around uncomfortably, mentally preparing himself to grab his gun at any second. In self-defense, of course. I mean, she was _crazy_... just like _him_. His eyes periodically darted to the one-way glass and he found his palms to be strangely sweaty. The room was freezing.

She was psyching him out and she wasn't even doing anything.

"Excuse me, Officer _Dahl_, but do you know what time it is?"

Dahl glanced over at the mousy woman behind the huge metal desk. She was smiling at him as she slowly swiveled in her chair. She was awfully confusing. One minute it was taking three officers to pin her down successfully and the next she was smiling and using terms like 'excuse me' instead of 'fuck you'. Maybe she was bipolar.

He looked down at his watch. "It's, uh, almost quarter to ten."

"What's the _exact_ time?"

"9:42 pm."

"Thank you, officer." Her grin seemed off, somehow. Almost sinister.

Dahl watched her with caution. Actually, more like paranoia. She continued to spin slowly from side to side in the leather chair and the handcuffs she wore around her wrists and ankles clanged together steadily. Her elbows leaned on the arm rests and she sat perfectly straight. It was almost like she was... _waiting_. Patiently waiting. The rookie got a sinking feeling in his stomach.

She looked like very messy trouble, with her shredded, dark red jeans and black tank top. Her brownish-blonde hair was pulled back untidily into two uneven pigtails, with a few strays falling along her face every now and then. She didn't seem to bother with them. Her face was quiet and ashen but she seemed so animated and _alive_. Even though old, black eyeliner was smudged rather ungracefully around her eyelids, her bright blue eyes shone through and scanned everything in the sterile interrogation room. She didn't seem to miss a beat. There were even a few occasions when Dahl caught her watching him. She seemed intrigued. It frightened him.

"Ya kno-ow," she drawled from between deep red lips, "_Dahl_ sounds a lot like _Doll_. Anyone ever tell you that, cutie?" She spun around several times in her chair.

Dahl gritted his teeth. "Yes."

She pondered for a moment. "I do like Doll better." She shook her finger at him. "I think that's what I'll call you."

Just as Dahl opened his mouth to respond, the large door sprang open and in walked Commissioner Jim Gordon with a rather thick manila folder and a small bag of colorful candy.

The woman clapped her hands together and grinned like a fool. "Hello again, commissioner!" She spun around a few more times.

He sat down wordlessly, not even looking at her, and shoved the bag of candy in front of her. It was apparent he was irritated as he sifted through the folder, stopping every now and again to glance at photos and terribly long police reports.

The woman, meanwhile, had opened the bag of candy and dumped it on the table in front of her. She began to daintily and meticulously separate the colors. "So how is your Officer Stanley?" She didn't look up at him, but she giggled.

He still never made eye contact. "That's none of your concern, Ms. Quinzel."

"That bad, huh?"

Apparently, barely half an hour ago she had been struggling with several officers and had kicked one in the collar bone after they tackled her to the ground at MCU. He was actually taken to the emergency room. Gordon began to think that two sets of handcuffs weren't enough. Perhaps rope and a lot of duct tape would do the trick.

Gordon snatched a photo out of the folder and slowly pushed it in front of her, in between the forming rainbow piles of candy. "Who is this woman?"

She looked up casually at the picture. "Ya got me." She continued with the candy.

A sigh. "Where are your parents?"

"Dead."

"Actually, your mother got remarried and moved to Pasadena; and your father now owns a farm in southern Montana. Aunts? Uncles?"

"Dead."

"You only have one aunt, but I was unable to get in touch with her. Siblings?"

"Dead."

"Ms Quinzel, you don't _have_ any siblings."

"Good ta know."

Gordon was having difficulty stopping himself from yelling at her. He knew they would get nowhere if he yelled. Harley would probably just laugh at him anyway. "Listen, if you don't start cooperating with me--"

"You'll what? Throw me into county with all the _bad boys_? I eat guys like that for dinner." She grinned and popped a red piece of candy into her mouth.

Gordon pointed to the picture still on the table. "This is _you_, Harleen. Two years ago." He paused for a minute and glanced down at the picture of Harley that could've been a completely different person from the psychotic woman sitting in front of him. "Why don't you tell me what happened?"

"What happened? You mean at the 7/11 that I just robbed blind?"

Gordon snorted slightly and shook his head. She was being difficult on purpose. "Yeah, we know all about that. There were cameras. I mean what happened to _you_, Harleen. _You_. You lived alone, in the Narrows nonetheless. From what we've been told you were a near complete recluse and all you had was your job, apartment, and your dog. You were an aspiring psychologist. Then you just disappeared after being admitted to the hospital. ...What _happened_? How did you get involved with the Joker?"

"A gun and a good decision. He changed my life."

"Yes, yes he did. You are now the single most wanted woman in the city."

Harley leaned in like she was about to share an intimate secret with the commissioner. "He's given me something that no one else has ever offered me before: freedom. Freedom from a city with all its rules and laws and _plaaaans_ and _scheeeemes_ that I never asked for made by people who really don't give a rat's ass about me. Well, they care now, don't they?" She smirked and leaned back in the chair as she popped a blue piece of candy into her mouth this time.

Gordon furrowed his eyebrows for a brief second. "Ok, for the final time, are you sure you don't want a lawyer?"

"No. Just you, Gordy!" This was the third time she refused a lawyer. She seemed to be taking the situation all too lightly.

Gordon cleared his throat, ignoring her new nickname for him. "Alright, then. Let's start at the beginning."

"Let's!" There was a long pause as she debated over the next piece of candy she wanted, but then decided against it. It was rude to talk with your mouth full. "Ok, so in the beginning, 4.5 billion years ago, the earth had been formed by solar nebula. The outer layer of the planet cooled and formed a solid crust when water began collecting in the atmosphere--" She paused as she saw the look forming on Gordon's face. "Not that far back, huh?"

"I want to know about you. I want to know about the Joker."

"Geez, not much of a sense of humor, I see."

Gordon remained silent. Jim Gordon was the damned commissioner of one of the most seedy cities in the country. Being 'funny' or having a 'sense of humor' wasn't in the job description.

Harley leaned to the side and glanced over Gordon's shoulder to Dahl, who stared back at her as if she was some kind of poisonous snake about to attack. "What's the time _now_, _Doll_?"

"I-it's 9:59."

"Oh, great! I have time! …Candy?" Harley pointed down at one of the piles in front of her.

"N-no."

She shrugged casually. "Suit yourself. I was gonna give you a red one."

Gordon wanted to just slap her silly. She was like a mischievous child with no parent in sight. "Ms. Quinzel, how did you meet the Joker?"

Harley laughed. She looked forward to putting on a good show. "It wasn't so much a meeting, _per se_, as it was a freight train hitting a deer…"


	2. 10:11 pm

_**I totally took the liberty of using Gambol's mobster name as a last name.**_

* * *

Chapter 2: 10:11 pm—Party of Five

It was a Friday night and Harleen Quinzel was curled up on her couch watching re-runs of Law and Order, bowl of half-burnt popcorn in hand. With no _real_ relationship to speak of and a family no longer even residing in the state, it was all she had.

Her slum apartment.

Her cheap job at the bookstore.

Her terrible re-runs of Law and Order.

And, of course, her beloved dachshund, Fritz, who, by the way, had been acting strange all evening.

"Fritz! Would you stop pacing already? You're gonna put holes in the floor."

The dog whined a little and then hopped up on the dingy couch with his owner. He curled into a small ball but kept a fixated gaze on the wall near the door: the wall Harleen shared with her neighbor, Leanne.

Harleen lived in a nicer part of the Narrows—if there was such a thing—and so she was grateful to be given at least a semi-dilapidated one-bedroom apartment at a relatively sane price that she didn't have to share with a prostitute, drug dealer or murderer. Times were hard so she was happy for the small things.

She had been completely enthralled with a particular episode of Criminal Intent when the noises started. She didn't actually hear them at first, but Fritz did. The small pooch stood up and growled a little.

"Fritz, c'mon! Please?"

The dog continued to growl and then jumped off the couch and began to pace again near the wall.

Harleen stared at Fritz. She put the TV on mute and set the popcorn off to the side. He was actually beginning to make her nervous. Fritz was always quiet and well-behaved but his pacing and unusual growls were beginning to put her on edge.

Then she finally heard it. Voices. Male voices. And Leanne's. She sounded panicked. Harleen couldn't make out what they were saying. They sounded muffled but she got the distinct impression that whatever was happening on the other side of the wall was not good.

She quickly stood up and grabbed an aluminum bat from beside an end table that sat next to the door. She also snatched her phone from the coffee table and took a stance near the couch, watching the wall with wide eyes and trying to make out what was being said.

With no gun in the apartment, a bat was pretty much it for her. She was a staunch advocate of gun control and had never even touched one before. She had pepper spray in her purse but that was about as violent as she got.

_THUMP._

The sound startled Harleen and she jumped back a little, dropping the telephone. Fritz had yelped, stuck his tail between his legs, and bolted off in the direction of her bedroom.

Harleen wasn't sure if something had hit the ground or the wall. But whatever it was it landed hard enough to rattle the pictures she had hanging on that side of the apartment.

"L-Leanne?" Harleen could barely squeak out the name. Her stomach was tying itself in knots and she suddenly felt dizzy.

Leanne had been a mobster's sister. She moved into the Narrows not out of stricken poverty but out of fear of her older brother's lifestyle. She once told Harleen that she would rather be living honestly in a ghetto surviving on her meager salary as a waitress than living the high life off of her brother's blood and drug money. When he was alive, he was heavily involved in organized crime and Leanne Gambol wanted no part in it. She didn't want to lose her life or get hurt because of someone else's mistakes.

* * *

Gordon was scribbling words down on a notepad when he paused, tapping his pen on the paper. "Leanne Gambol… I know the name." Gordon tried to put the name to a face. He vaguely remembered something about a murder… maybe the lake? But there were just so many in this town that they were hard to keep track of sometimes.

Harley snorted. "Well, you _should_, _co-missioner_. It was _her_ body that was found on the shores of Lake Gotham 3 days later. The media had a damn _field day_ with her death. 'Member?"

It was almost two years ago that they found a young woman's body washed up from the lake. She had only been dead a few days. And when the media got their hands on the gruesome story, they ran with it.

**JANE DOE BODY WASHED UP ON SHORE!**

**JANE DOE IDENTITY FOUND, TIES TO MOB**

**BODY FROM LAKE JOKER'S MO!  
**  
Oh yes, that's right. Gordon cringed a little. She had been one of the Joker's first victims after he broke out of Arkham. "You saw her die?"

"Ehhh, well, sort of." Harley then sighed, her face suddenly seeming very exhausted, and, for the briefest moment, it seemed she had gained back a small piece of her decomposing humanity. "Leanne was a _beautiful_ black woman. Stunning, in fact. She could've been a model or an actress. But being a young, attractive female in the Narrows? And a mobster's relative, nonetheless? She was _destined_ to die young." She paused for a moment, remembering something, then the dreariness in her face faded and her features once again took on that unusual goofy, sadistic look. It was weird.

"Ms. Quinzel, please continue." Gordon ushered her on. Leanne Gambol's mutilation and subsequent death had been a rather well-known murder case in Gotham. And the commissioner wanted to know everything that Harley knew.

Harley waved him off like he was an irritating fly. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't get your panties in a knot, _Gordy_."

* * *

"_Please! Stop!_"

Now those were two words Harleen could make out quite clearly. It was Leanne. And it terrified her. But she couldn't just stand there looking petrified while this woman was raped, robbed, or worse--killed.

Harleen, for a brief moment, considered calling the police right then and there and just sitting it out until they got to the apartment. But this was the Narrows. Nobody cared about this little piece of no-man's-land. It was like 'Mad Max' out there--every crazy man for himself. And the police had so much else to worry about. It would probably take anywhere between a half hour to an hour for someone to arrive--if she was lucky. And luck wasn't very common in a place like this.

Harleen scrambled for the phone on the ground and shoved it in the pocket of her baggy pajama pants. She gripped the bat until her knuckles were white. She looked back at Fritz whose little brown head had poked out from behind the wall of her bedroom. Harleen pointed back at him. "You stay here and hold down the fort, okay?" The dog once again disappeared into the room.

"_Noo_!"

It was more of a scream than an actual word, but Harleen heard that pretty well, too. The woman took a deep breath and headed to the door, her hands fused to the bat like it was all she had in the world.

As she inched her way to the door she heard another brief _thump_ and then all went eerily quiet. The voices faded. No Leanne. Adrenaline pumped through her veins. She was so ready to beat down someone with her trusty baseball bat... if that's what it came to. But dear sweet god, she hoped not.

In the grimy hallway, Harleen's door was probably no more than four feet away from Leanne's. She remembered all the times the two of them sat in the hallway together, leaning up against their doors, puffing on cigarettes and chatting idly about whatever. Fritz was always there, too, of course. Leanne was one of Harleen's only friends. Harleen mostly kept to herself everywhere and anywhere she went. Not even her co-workers knew much about her other than her name. But Leanne had forced herself into Harleen's life; always baking cakes and cookies and stopping by to share or 'just to chat' when poor Har had first moved in. They grew on each other.

Leanne's door was open a few inches and Harleen could see some books on the ground that had been toppled off the book shelf. The lighting in the room seemed strange. There were so many shadows. She could hear soft, muffled weeping.

Harleen Quinzel was so frazzled by this point her body was nearly spasming. "Leanne?!" She whispered through the crack in the door. The crying stopped abruptly.

Harleen slowly pushed open the door until she could pop her head in and when she did, she gasped. The apartment was torn apart. There was red spray paint all over the walls, spelling out 'ha ha ha' and 'where's the bat now?'. Trinkets were lying broken on the floor and the coffee table was overturned. Curtains were shredded and sprayed red. Most of the lights were out. And in the middle of it all, barely ten feet from the door, sat a bound and gagged Leanne. She stared at Harley with big, brown bloodshot eyes. A lamp lay on the ground next to her, still on. It cast eerie shadows on her face.

* * *

"What time was this, Harleen?"

Harley shrugged. "Who knows? But, hey, Law and Order was on." She popped another red piece of candy into her mouth and grinned. "And speaking of 'time', what is it now, Doll?"

Officer Dahl cleared his throat. "10:11."

"_Seriously_?" Harley seemed genuinely surprised. "Gee, I feel like I've been jaw-jackin' forever now."

Gordon started to feel disturbed by her keen interest in the time. He furrowed his eyebrows at her. "Why is the time important? It's not like you're going anywhere."

She giggled. "I have an early bedtime tonight."

Something was off.

* * *

Leanne squirmed and tried to say something through the duct tape covering her mouth as Harleen slowly approached. Leanne's nose was bleeding a little over the tape and there were still wet trails on her face from tears. Blood matted down a small patch of her dark, curly hair on the right side of her head. It was still wet. She looked _disastrous_.

"Oh my _god_, Leanne..." Harleen put her bat on the ground and bent down in front of the beaten woman and gingerly peeled off the tape.

Leanne started crying again and her voice was barely more than a squeak. _"_P-please, please go. Run. _Before he gets you_."

"W-what?" And before Harleen even had time to react, a rough hand pulled her up by the back of her tank top. She yelped.

"_Ah, ah, ah_. No noise, no noise."

Two men had suddenly appeared in the living room with her. And both had bizarre, warped clown masks on. The one that grabbed her snaked his arms around her as she struggled and the other had a handheld camera. Only god knew what they were up to before she arrived.

Harleen saw something move out of the corner of her eye and looked to the hallway off to the left. She began screaming wildly. There, at the threshold to the living room, stood a frightening man in a purple suit. He looked like some kind of cartoon nightmare. His hair was a wavy blonde, tinted green. His face was painted a stark white with black circles around his eyes and his lips, well, I suppose they couldn't _actually_ be considered lips anymore. But they were smudged with some kind of red paint or lipstick that went back across his cheeks almost to his ears. His makeup was imperfect and smudged. And those scars... The Glasgow Smile. It was wicked.

He began laughing at her. It was a terrible, maniacal laugh that made Harleen just want to crawl under a rock and _die_. But, perhaps, that was the point.

She struggled viciously with the man holding her. And eventually she tripped on a small trinket on the floor nearby and both she and Clown Man 1 went sprawling to the ground. She hit the carpet with a _thud _but quickly pulled herself together and crawled for the door, her phone spilling out from her pocket behind her.

"Get out, Harleen. _Go_!" Leanne cried out from behind her.

Just as Harleen reached the door she saw a pair of legs blocking the way. Scuffed brown shoes. Technicolor socks. Deep purple pants. "Oh _Haaaarrrrleee-eeen_."

Harleen looked up at the man and he leaned down close to her face. "_Boo_!"

She squeaked and threw her body back away from him. She knew who this man was. Gotham's Nightmare. The Clown Prince of Crime. Oh, yes. Harleen had seen enough of him on the nightly news to know exactly who he was. And she knew that him... here... now... was not a good thing. Not a good thing at all.

Clown Man 2 grabbed her under her arm and lifted her to her feet. Her brain was in panic mode and all she could think to do was run. Run until her legs give out. Run until she keels over from exhaustion. Run until she reaches the police.

"It would seem that _some_one has decided to _crash_ our _paaar_-tyyy." The Joker watched the intense fear play across her features.

Leanne was near hysterics as she sat slouched on the ground begging for Harley's life as well as her own. The Joker peered over Harleen's shoulder at the woman for a moment and examined her strangely. He then siddled around Harleen--who was falling into tears by this point--and approached Leanne.

"Ya know, I think you _cry _too much. You need to _smiiile more_." He nodded his head weirdly at her and lifted her up. He grabbed her by the back of the head and whipped out a small but truly vicious looking knife. Harleen imagined what the rest of his arsenal of sharp little toys looked like.

Leanne squirmed and squealed as the Joker held her in a death grip and put the shiny metal to her face. "Shush shush shush. Stop moving. _Sto-p_." He got close to her face. "I once met your brother. He didn't like me very much. But _let me tell you_ I put a _smile_ on that face of his and now we're, ah, _chums_."

Leanne, in a sudden burst of courage, spat, "You fucking _butchered_ him, you lunatic!"

The Joker tilted his head back a little. "Hooooo ha ha ha ha ha hee ha ha!" He was mocking her. "Ahh, ya better watch what you say, Ms. _Gamboool_, ya just might get _hur-t_."

Leanne leered at him. "It doesn't matter, you're gonna kill me anyway. Sadistic bastard."

The Joker pondered this. "Hmmm… you're right. _I am_." He drew the knife across her face from her lips, digging in deeply. Leanne tried screaming but it only came out as a strangled gurgle. Her body collapsed to the floor. Her face was a bleeding mess. "_Theeeere_, now you'll always be smiling!"

And once again Harleen was screaming and struggling. "Leanne! _Leanne_!"

The Joker turned on his heel to face Harleen.

"I'm sorry you had to witness that. This was only supposed to be a party of _four_ this eve-ning." The Clown seemed rather nonchalant about the whole thing. It was horrifying.

* * *

**_So I've changed the term 'mortifying' to 'horrifying' per the advice of a reviewer. I fudged up on that one. Oops, sorry._**


End file.
